Aimee, I heard once that everybody dies twice—once when their heart stops, and again when their name is spoken for the last time. But there is another sort of dying in between, a crueler death: when those you love begin to make choices they would never make if you were there. If you were alive. Things that would be thoughtless, brutal even, but in your absence, become benign. Like giving away your clothes. Or removing the flurries of magazine clippings you carefully curated across your bedroom walls.
